The Masses. Constance Long

24 THE MASSES penguins—or, to speak more scientifically, not simply a religions, men had at all times free access to the land, they would not scientific, learned, educated biped. If we are human beings work in factories except at a decent wage. Hence the way to we can change the world by our reason. If we are penguins, abolish poverty was to restore that freedom. In Philadelphia, we shall muddle along, very amusingly, with our passions. Per and on a larger scale in England when his growing business took haps those passions will lead us to the Co—operative Common him there, he pursued his experiment of restoring men to the wealth; and perhaps—if old Karl Marx made a mistake in his land. But the more successful his projects were, the more clear logarithms—they won’t. We can build bridges and cathedrals did it‘become that any such projects, privately pursued, were as a beaver builds a dam and a bird its nest, write poems with inadequate. He pressed his plans upon local boards, and finally an instinct only slightly refined upon that of the nightingale, went into national politics, supporting the Liberal party in its we have a varied and elaborate life of the senses, and a mind land-tax measure. which dreams itself out of their trammels. But—a politician He had in the meantime read Henry George's book, and dis can draw men to the battlefield with the noise of a fife and covered that he was a Single Taxer. It became henceforth the drum. Can the best thought of the best minds ever hope to leading motif of his life to persuade society to recover its birth 'defeat that poor sensual appeal? “Upon the answer to that right and with that its freedom. question depends the fate of the world.” F. D. Politics proved, in some measure, a blind alley; the candi dates whom he had supported proved timid or lukewarm in carrying on the work of land reform; and the Fels Fund Com— Joseph Fels mission was created to lay the foundations of the movement eager, imperious little man," as someone described him, deeper in the public mind. Joseph Fels himself was indefatigable. “AN “with a soft felt hat tilted over his face at an impudent He wrote thousands of letters, and sent to every inquirer a copy angle”~—American in his cheerful, homely manners and frank of “Progress and Poverty,” which he had had translated into speech, Jewish in his shrewd practicality and large prophetic Italian, Bulgarian, Swedish, Yiddish and Chinese. He attended vision, a millionaire and a democrat, one of the most passion every trades union congress, and distributed pamphlets. He ately alive persons of our generation—Joseph Fels lives again spoke his convictions on every available occasion. And with in the pages of this book written by his wife.2 Whether he is all this there was no narrowing of interests; he' found time to getting up a demonstration in Hyde Park, or financing a meet help many causes that might seem to have only a remote theo Jersey in ing of Russian revolutionists, or tramping over New retical connection with his own education, the care of children, the effort to get McQueens out of jail, or telling Andrew woman suffrage, Zionism. Carnegie what he thinks of his “free” libraries, there is a flavor The flavor of the man comes out in scores of the incidents in his words and deeds which sets him apart from the tamely related in the book. He wrote to Carnegie, who had said that benevolent millionaires of contemporary [fact and fiction—a ro— the single-tax propaganda was hopeless: “No work done any— bust imaginativeness, a spiritual daring, a tremendous sincerity— where at any time for furthering the cause of economic freedom a man whose whole life was built around the saying, “I’ll see was ever hopeless; and you,—of all men—should know this, human freedom yet.” seeing that you have done so much to make it hopeless, without His beginnings were the familiar ones of ~the successful suceeding in breaking down the courage of the common peo American business man. He went to work at fifteen in his ple.” Your libraries, he said, “are a noose around the necks _ father’s soap factory. He thought he could make a particular of the common people, for which they will yet rise and curse kind of soap that every housewife would hear of—and he did: you.” Carnegie had said that “the deserving rise out of their “Fels’ Naptha.” Meanwhile, he married. The death of his first poverty”-—to which Joseph Fels, festraining his wrath, rejoins: child, and the attempt of his wife to find a new center for her “Are you not talking through your hat ?” life in social and intellectual activities brought into their house “We can’t get rich,” he told a Chicago audience “under pres— artists, poets, reformers. From them Joseph Fels learned “the ent conditions, without robbing somebody. I have done it; irresistible charm of thinking new thoughts and dreaming new you are doing it now; and I am still doing it. But I propose to dreams.” spend the money to wipe out the system by which. I made it.” But what he did was characteristic of himself. He got the He became acquainted with a man who had been in prison, sites to let some workingmen owners of some unused building and persuaded him to write down the story of his treatment plant gardens there. It had been done before—but the visible there. “From the torn little bits of dirty paper, ill— from an sight of those weedy and rubbish filled lots turning into rich written, ill-spelt and utterly disconnected narrative, there was and beautiful garden-plots, proved something to him that he ultimately pieced together a condemnation of the conditions in could never forget: the fact that workingmen wanted to dig a certain state penitentiary such as no words can describe. and plant and water and tend the earth and gather crops from Horrified at this, Mr. Fels had a fair copy of the man's nar— it. After that it was no use to talk to him, as no doubt many rative made and sent it to the Govenor of the State concerned. S‘ocialists did, about the inevitable processes by which machine He received no reply. He wrote and urged that such a rvela— production had supplanted agriculture as the dominant mode of ‘tion suggested at least the need for an inquiry. To this, re livelihood of the epoch. To him it wasn‘t inevitable, the crowd ‘sponse was made that the Governor could take no steps in the ing of men in cities, it was wrong. He knew, because he had matter. Mr. Fels was furious at this rebuff. It was, as he said, ~ seen. at least worth while to have the indictment investigated; it 50 he gradually built up a working political economy.. If might to be happen true and the Governor would have the satisfaction of knowing that he had remedied an injustice. To itJose/'h Fels, His Lichl'ork, by Mary Fels. $1 net. B. W. Huebsch. Generated on 2015-07-02 19:58 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015093166166 Public Domain / http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#pd ' ‘ THE MASSES 25 \0 ((2)1: 9 t D ,3 () __,1’ 1 A in-|---- Drawn by Arthur Young. I The Rising Young Artist: “All that I have accomplished in art owe to the struggle for the necessities of life.” The Cartoonist: “That’s the way to look at it,—if the cost of living goes high enough, you’ll be greater than Michael Angelo.” a this request, also, he received a curt refusal. He could stand it brisk, colloquial way. The undergraduate audience was polite, no longer. He wrote to the Governor, demanding an immediate tolerant, bored, conscious of his deficiencies in culture, resentful a inquiry at which representative nominated by himself should of him as a rich busybody. Then all that vanished. be present; otherwise he threatened to publish the statement and “Learning itself—I make claim to none,” he said, “and am an the correspondence in every journal in the United States. Within ignorant man in comparison with many of you—must flourish a a month the inquiry had been held to his satisfaction.” best at last on soil that is free from evil undergrowths. On an occasion, hearing that the Crown Prince of Denmark Below every movement that calls itself progressive but puts off was interested in land reform, he tried to meet him, but was the consideration of the evil of private monopoly in land values, is prevented by the red—tape of the Danish court. But, soon there a moral evil that poisons everything.” Miss McMillan’s afterward, he found himself on a ferryboat with the Crown account goes on: “Now the voice gathered strength. Prince and his suite. He came up, held out his hand and said, Through the calm sun-bathed space between the college walls, and I “How do you do, Crown Prince. am Joseph Fels, interested over the green shaven mound, it rose and fell—the voice as of in bringing the land and the people together.” Consternation in one crying in the wilderness. With passionate faith, in perfect . the royal suite. But the Crown Prince and Joseph Fels went self—surrender, in quiet acceptance of all labor and loss and all aside and talked for two hours about land.

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